Half a decade ago, a handful of St. Albertans decided to take their political debates off social media and into local pubs.
On July 22, the St. Albert Poliwings group celebrated the five-year anniversary of their first meeting in their traditional fashion: with wings.
The group, founded by residents Kevin Malinowski and Dana Popadynetz, was inspired by a group of political enthusiasts in Calgary. Malinowski said he had never met Popadynetz in person before getting Poliwings off the ground, and had only interacted on Twitter. But after seeing some Twitter arguments between residents, they decided to give a face-to-face meeting a shot.“It was a push at that point so that we could actually get face to face and try to avoid some of these disagreements and some anger that was happening over the written word. (We wanted to) talk face to face to really see what was going on and start to understand people,” Malinowski said.
The first meeting, which was hosted at the Celtic Knot on July 22, 2014, brought out 15 people, including Michael Cooper before he was elected as the MP for St. Albert and Cathy Heron before she became the mayor of the city. The group came together to talk about politics over wings.
Malinowski said the community he and Popadynetz created has had the desired effect – he sees less negative discourse online.
“Some of the online dialogue dropped off a little bit and some of it became more supportive,” Malinowski said.
The political watcher said some of the conversations have moved into direct messages online rather than have the negative discourse publicly on their Facebook page. Often people with dissenting views will agree to talk in person at the next Poliwings gathering rather than having the conversation online.
“It did stop some of that negative stuff and allow people to talk things through,” Malinowski said.
“I think that that's what the purpose of the group was, to get people together so you could sit down and talk ... to people you didn't know before and keep the political conversation going to solve our problems instead of constantly going into Facebook and complaining.”
The Poliwings organizer said many of the people who attend the event are already informed about many of the issues they discuss, but everybody can learn something at the event.
Malinowski said many politicians come to the Poliwings nights and it has become a bit of an important campaign stop during elections. Many people vying for a seat in public office come to listen to the discussions and concerns of the Poliwings group.
Malinowski said his plan for the group is to keep it running as long as he can but is looking for help organizing the monthly meetings.
